Malawi Network of AIDS Service Organisations (MANASO), together with Civil Social Advocacy forum (CSAF) is implementing Community led Monitoring (CLM) project with funding from the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), through Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNAIDS.
CLM project is being implemented in 45 sites (30 Health Facilities, 12 DICs and 3 Central Prisons) across 6 districts (Mzimba North, Lilongwe, Zomba, Blantyre, Thyolo, Chikwawa) These sites were selected because of the existence of a PEPFAR implementing partner, HIV performance and implementation of KP and other vulnerable populations projects.
The project has the following objectives:
- To Generate evidence through CLM to inform CSOs engagement and Advocacy with, Government, stakeholders and decision makers at all levels.
- To Use the evidence generated from community monitoring for improvement of quality and delivery of the PEPFAR supported national HIV, TB and other related conditions services.
- To strengthen the capacity of CSOs to independently conduct community and facility- based monitoring to influence systematic change for specific interventions.
- To conduct monitoring and evaluation of the project.
Major beneficiaries
The major beneficiaries of CLM- Liu Lathu project are;
- People Living with HIV
- Women Living with HIV
- Children Living with HIV Under 5
- Inmates/Prisoners
- Adolescent Girls and Young Women
- Female Sex Workers
- Transgender Persons
- Men who have Sex with Men
These groups are targeted because of challenges faced when accessing health services, which disadvantages their ability to access health services which increases the likelihood of spreading HIV/TB and other related disease. CLM will advocate for solutions to challenges faced by these populations when accessing health services
Since the inauguration of Liu Lathu program in October 2020, the community members have been at the center of driving the implementation of CLM core activities of monitoring and collecting both qualitative and quantitative data through a wide variety of methods that reveal insights from communities about the problems and proposing solutions to the challenges and gaps in health service delivery in health facilities, communities, sub-national and national level. Community linkage group members will also begin to collect data with supervision from the community monitors as part of sustainability.